MONTREAL,
Dec. 19, 2012 /CNW Telbec/ - The "Golden Eagle Snatches Kid" video,
uploaded to YouTube on the evening of December 18, was made by Normand
Archambault, Loïc Mireault, Antoine Seigle and Félix Marquis-Poulin, students
at Centre NAD, in the production simulation workshop class of the Bachelors
degree in 3D Animation and Digital Design.

The
video shows a royal eagle snatching a young kid while he plays under the watch
of his dad. The eagle then drops the kid a few feet away. Both the eagle and
the kid were created in 3D animation and integrated in to the film afterwards.

The
video has already received more than 1,200,000 views on YouTube and has been
mentioned by dozens of media in Canada
and abroad. [...]

ANTIGO
-- An online video of a hawk grabbing a baby that was revealed to be a hoax
could be behind an increase in bird shootings, one wildlife rehabilitation
expert says.

The
Raptor Education Group, a wildlife rehabilitation center near Antigo, has taken
in four hawks and two bald eagles since the video was released, Executive
Director Marge Gibson said. Six birds, all of which were shot, are at least
twice as many as the center usually gets in one month, she said. [...]

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

A
veteran New York
journalist was convinced that Ved Mehta, the blind Indian writer, was not
really blind at all. Having spotted Mehta sitting stiffly on the couch at a
party at Mike Nichols's, he stationed himself in front of the man, who was
stealing the cashews from a bowl of mixed nuts. The journalist waved his hands
back and forth at the man, started making faces. The guests -- Renata Adler and
Penelope Gilliatt among them -- were aghast. But the Indian stared straight
ahead, impassive. The journalist shrugged. He had had his doubts, he announced,
but was now convinced that Mehta was indeed blind.

"That
may be so," replied one guest, "but that man on the couch is V.S.
Naipaul."

Spy, September 1989, p. 111.

Slaves of the New Yorker

By
Jennet Conant

[...]
The most intense Ved skeptics are not fully convinced that anyone could
produce such detailed visual passages if he were actually blind. [...] In one
often-told incident, a young writer became obsessed with the notion that Ved
could, in fact, see. At a literary function, the story goes, the young writer
spotted a dapper Indian gentleman, walked directly over and started making
extraordinary faces and obscene gestures at him. The mortified hostess, as she
dragged the young writer away, asked, "What in God's name were you doing
to V.S. Naipaul?" [...]

There
was a story I never asked Vidia to verify -- didn't dare ask, because I wanted
it to be true. If it was not true, it ought to have been.

Ved
Mehta is a distinguished Indian writer. [...] Ved Mehta is also famously blind.
A certain New Yorker doubted his blindness. Seeing Mehta at a New York party, speaking to a group of
attentive people, holding court, the man decided to test it. He had always been
skeptical that Mehta was totally blind, since in his writing he minutely
described people's faces and wrote about the nuances of color and texture with
elaborate subtlety, making precise distinctions.

The
man crept over to where Mehta was sitting, and as the writer continued to
speak, the doubting man began making faces at him. He leaned over and waved his
hands at Ved Mehta's eyes. He thumbed his nose at Ved Mehta. He wagged his
fingers in Ved Mehta's face.

Still,
Mehta went on speaking, calmly and in perfectly enunciated sentences, never
faltering in his expansive monologue.

The
man made a last attempt: he put his own face a foot away and stuck his tongue
out. But Mehta spoke without a pause, as if the man did not exist.

Realizing
how wrong he had been, the man felt uncomfortable and wanted to go home.
Leaving the party, he said to the hostess, "I had always thought Ved Mehta
was faking his blindness, or at least exaggerating. I am now convinced that Ved
Mehta is blind."

12/12/12
spawned a dozen hoaxes, but the one that was most hilarious kept people in the
Valley up all night and the state government busy firefighting through the day.
The message, purportedly from NASA and the BBC, advised people to switch off
their cellphones from 12.30 to 3.30 am on Tuesday as “cosmos rays are entering
the Earth from Mars”. The message even warned people to keep away the
cellphones from their body because “cosmos” rays are dangerous. [...]

Late
on Tuesday night, residents across Kashmir
scrambled to switch off their mobile phones. The reason was not pesky calls but
another ‘incoming’ hazard: a rumour that harmful “cosmic rays” were going to
enter Earth via the phones from Mars, and set off blasts.

The
government finally had to step in and make announcements on radio and
television, threatening to book people spreading the rumour, to quell the
panic. [...]

He
told the residents to ignore the rumours saying those spreading it want to
sabotage the voters registration in the region.

Residents
said the rumour, which surfaced soon after the start of the registration, has
caused panic and fear.

“A
rumor went round and most of them have refused to heed to the calls to register
as voters. They say the machine sucks blood form their fingers and it can cause
cancer,” said Rose Kazungu, a residents. [...]

Friday, November 30, 2012

Police
in Jintang county, Sichuan
province, denied rumors posted online saying that local children had been
kidnapped in order to have their organs removed, the Chengdu Commercial Daily
reported on Thursday.

The
police added that the person who spread the rumors has been punished, the paper
said.

County
police sources said that a resident surnamed Yuan posted notes online saying
that some children in the county's Pingqiao township had been kidnapped to have
their organs removed.

Investigations
showed that Yuan made up the rumors and he was punished, police said.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Tony
went as the result of a poor piece of judgment on his part. During a stay in Hawaii, we found
ourselves in an overbooked hotel. Alana and I had Sean and Kimberly in a room
with us, and we asked Toon to share an adjoining twin room with Ashley, who was
then seven. Toon, of course, couldn't resist pulling some bloke in the bar that
evening and taking him back to his room. I fired Toon in the morning.

Toon's
revenge was absolutely inspired. He fed the press a story in which, as a
consequence of an evening spent orally servicing a gang of sailors in a gay bar
in San Diego, I had been required to check into a hospital emergency room to
have my stomach pumped. With minor variations (the quantity of the extracted
fluid tends to fluctuate: seven pints, three ounces, half a quart; it's a
relatively open field), this story has stayed with me ever since. Say what you
like about Tony Toon -- and God rest his soul -- but he was good at his job.

For
the record, then (and just to put it simply and clearly for posterity's sake):
I believe I was in the Hotel Cipriani in Venice
on the night of the alleged incident. I have never orally pleasured even a
solitary sailor, let alone a ship's worth in one evening. And I have never had
my stomach pumped, either of naval-issue semen or of any other kind of semen.
Nor of anything else, for that matter.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

KOTA KINABALU: Police have dismissed as mere rumours the
SMSes and Facebook messages alleging incidents of people here being assaulted
and robbed in their cars by individuals pretending to ask for directions here.

Kota
Kinabalu police chief Asst Comm Jauteh Dikun said there were no reports of such
incidents.

The
SMSes and Facebook postings cautioned motorists against lowering their vehicle
windows when approached by individuals carrying name cards and seeking
directions.

The
messages claim that hidden behind the cards were blades to slash the motorists
before they are robbed of their belongings.

Kota Kinabalu: A message
circulated via SMS warning people of a man going around scratching people's
faces before running off with their belongings has been brushed aside as mere
rumours by police.

The message was allegedly
sent from the police station claiming that a total of six cases were reported
here, warning about somebody knocking on car windows and showing a name card
and asking for directions.

It warned people not to lower
their car window because there is a blade hidden behind the name card, which
the man would use to scratch the unsuspecting victim before making off with
their belongings. [...]

Friday, November 9, 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 10 (Bernama) -- The Malaysian National Space
Agency (Angkasa) today refuted the rumour circulating via social media claiming
that the world will be in darkness for three days from Dec 23 during the
alignment of the Universe.

The
report stated that during the cosmic alignment of the Sun, Earth and the centre
of the galaxy, thick dust clouds would block the night-time view of the Milky
Way, hence creating what was called a 'total blackout'. [...]

Hurricane
Sandy brought
out the worst yesterday in some sleazy New Yorkers, who looted stores and homes
across the city.

Some
posed as Con Ed workers to dupe their victims.

Police
arrested more than a dozen looters in the Rockaways and Coney
Island, which had been evacuated, and stood guard outside ravaged
stores at the South Street Seaport.

“This
morning when they told us the water receded, I walked back to the house to feed
[my pets],” said Eric Martine, 33, a cabby who lives in Brooklyn’s Gerritsen Beach. “Guys were looting, pretending
they were Con Ed and holding people up. It was sick.”

Residents
said police warned them to beware of crooks pretending to be utility workers.
[...]

There is zero real evidence
that anyone has dressed up as a Con Ed worker and gone door-to-door robbing
people, yet the tales of such incidents are cropping up so frequently in media,
on social networks, and old fashioned in person, that even Con Ed is warning
people to ask its workers for ID. [...]

WINCHESTER, Ky. (WKYT) - [...] Police tell us
one 8-year-old girl found something unexpected in her trick-or-treat bag on the
road she lives on in Winchester and that surprise sent her to the hospital.

A
medical needle in her trick or treat bag is what Winchester police tell us one trick-or-treater
found instead of candy. [...]

HOOPESTON
-- Police are investigating where a trick-or-treater received a candy bar found
to have part of piece of metal inside.

A
28-year-old Rossville man reported the tampered candy to Hoopeston police
Wednesday night after trick-or-treating with his daughter in the Hoopeston and
Rossville area, according to a release by Hoopeston Police Chief Mark
Drollinger.

According
to Drollinger, the man discovered the candy bar -- which appeared to have been
opened and then resealed with tape. Inside the wrapper, the man told police he
found a metal shard. The piece of metal was not inserted into the candy bar.
[...]

[...]
At approximately 8 p.m. on Halloween, Chilliwack RCMP responded to a complaint
of a piece of candy with a wrapper that looked to have been tampered with in
some way.

Police
have seized the candy and sent it to a lab for testing.

"Right
now, we are dealing with a possible isolated incident, said Cst. Tracy Wolbeck
in a press release issued Thursday afternoon. "That's important to stress,
because we know there have been a number of posts on Facebook regarding claims
of candy tampering in the Chilliwack
area. We urge people using social media not to spread unsubstantiated
allegations, particularly those of a criminal nature, but instead to use social
media to share more practical and common-sense advice." [...]

Claims
that a Lusby teenager ate a piece of candy laced with drugs he received during
trick-or-treating Wednesday night quickly spread throughout the community and
incited fear in county residents, but proved to be false after a Calvert County
Sheriff’s Office investigation. [...]

[...]
A parent called Bay
County sheriff's
deputies, reporting they'd found a prescription pill stuck inside of a candy
bar. The pill, which is a medication of high blood pressure called Prazosin
Hydrochloride, was stuck inside of a 3 Musketeers candy bar. [...]

Ricki
Worrell of Myrtle Beach
said she took her 10-year-old daughter trick-or-treating down maybe two or
three of the streets in her neighborhood, Myrtle Beach Golf and Yacht Club,
before calling it a night.

When
they returned home, Worrell says they dumped all the candy collected out on the
table to see what her daughter had received, and with several larger items in
the bucket, she didn't immediately notice the BIC razor.

"I
could not believe my eyes," Worrell comments.

The
razor that her daughter came home with appeared to still be in it's original
package [....]

A Columbus mother has
changed her story about a 5-year-old son biting into a one-inch metal staple in
his Halloween candy. Now police are trying to determine whether the initial
report was a hoax.

The
mother had accompanied her son trick-or-treating on Halloween in Columbus and told police
that night her child later bit into a Tootsie Roll and felt a metal staple in
his mouth. But during interviews over the course of Thursday, Police spokesman
Lt. Matt Myers said discrepancies surfaced in the story.

Police
talked to the boy and the mother separately Thursday, when the son indicated
that he’d never eaten a piece of tainted candy. Afterward, Myers said the
mother acknowledged this.

The
mother’s latest account is that a female friend of hers found the candy wrapper
Halloween night on the floor. When that individual picked up the wrapper, there
was a staple in it.

It
was no treat for a St. Catharines
mother who discovered over the counter medication in her son's Halloween candy
bag.

Sarah
Stevens tells 610 CKTB news, when she went through the candy her six year old
son brought home Wednesday night after trick or treating in the city's south
end, she discovered three packages of pain medication, including Advil liquid
gels and Robaxecet, a pain reliever for back pain. [...]

On
Sunday, November 4, 2012, the Mentor Police Department received a report
regarding contaminated candy. A citizen took her child Trick or Treating on
Sunday evening. She checked the candy once at home and found a box of Wonka
Grape Nerds candy with the top bent back but still glued shut. She opened the
box and found it half filled with staples and not candy. [...]

IONIA COUNTY, MI -- A Palo mother discovered that her 4-year-old
received more than candy when trick-or-treating on Oct. 31.

The
Ionia Sentinel-Standard reports the woman found a "small, cellophane
baggie with a green leafy substance inside" in her child's trick-or-treat
bag. She told police she was unsure where the baggie and its contents
originated.

A
test by the Ionia Department of Public Safety confirmed the substance was
marijuana. [...]

A
case involving the alleged tampering of Halloween candy will be sent to the
Bartholomew County Prosecutor's Office early next week.

Columbus police were sent to a home on Halloween night
regarding a 5-year-old boy allegedly finding a piece of metal inside a piece of
candy he received while trick-or-treating. Police spokesperson Lt. Matt Myers
says the boy's mother told police that her son was eating an orange Tootsie
Roll when he discovered the object. The boy was not injured. [...]

Tests
that showed illegal drugs were found in a 16-year-old boy’s system after he ate
a piece of Halloween candy allegedly laced with drugs proved to be false after
confirmatory testing showed the original results were a false positive.

“It
was a false positive in the test,” said Calvert County Sheriff Mike Evans (R).
“[The teenager] did not have illegal drugs in his system. The information we
gave out was premature. We should have waited until we got the results back.”
[...]